T.S. Eliot - Biographical T.S. Eliot The Nobel Prize in Literature 1948 T.S. Eliot Share this: T.S. Eliot - Biographical Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, of an old New England family. He was educated at Harvard and did graduate work in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and Merton College, Oxford. He settled in England, where he was for a time a schoolmaster and a bank clerk, and eventually literary editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber, of which he later became a director. He founded and, during the seventeen years of its publication (1922-1939), edited the exclusive and influential literary journal Criterion. In 1927, Eliot became a British citizen and about the same time entered the Anglican Church. Eliot has been one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry.

Never compromising either with the public or indeed with language itself, he has followed his belief that poetry should aim at a representation of the complexities of modern civilization in language and that such representation necessarily leads to difficult poetry. Despite this difficulty his influence on modern poetic diction has been immense. Eliot's poetry from Prufrock (1917) to the Four Quartets (1943) reflects the development of a Christian writer: the early work, especially The Waste Land (1922), is essentially negative, the expression of that horror from which the search for a higher world arises. In Ash Wednesday (1930) and the Four Quartets this higher world becomes more visible; nonetheless Eliot has always taken care not to become a «religious poet». and often belittled the power of poetry as a religious force. However, his dramas Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Family Reunion (1939) are more openly Christian apologies. In his essays, especially the later ones, Eliot advocates a traditionalism in religion, society, and literature that seems at odds with his pioneer activity as a poet.

But although the Eliot of Notes towards the Definition of Culture (1948) is an older man than the poet of The Waste Land, it should not be forgotten that for Eliot tradition is a living organism comprising past and present in constant mutual interaction. Eliot's plays Murder in the Cathedral (1935), The Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party (1949), The Confidential Clerk (1954), and TheElderStatesman(1959) were published in one volume in 1962; Collected Poems 1909-62 appeared in 1963. From Nobel Lectures , Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969 This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel . It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures . To cite this document, always state the source as shown above. T.S. Eliot died on January 4, 1965. T.S.

Eliot - Writer - Biography.com T.S. Eliot T.S. Eliot was a groundbreaking 20th century poet who is known widely for his work "The Waste Land." IN THESE GROUPS “April is the cruellest month.” T.S. Eliot Synopsis T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1888. He published his first poetic masterpiece, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," in 1915. In 1921, he wrote the poem "The Waste Land" while recovering from exhaustion. The dense, allusion-heavy poem went on to redefine the genre and become one of the most talked about poems in literary history. For his lifetime of poetic innovation, Eliot won the Order of Merit and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Part of the ex-pat community of the 1920s, he spent most of his life in Europe, dying in London, England, in 1965. Early Years Thomas Stearns "T.S." Eliot was born in St.

Louis, Missouri, on September 26, 1888. He attended Smith Academy in St. Louis and then the Milton Academy in Massachusetts, as his family was originally from New England. Soon after the turn of the century, Eliot began seeing his poems and short stories in print, and writing would occupy him for the rest of his life. Eliot began courses at Harvard University in 1906, graduating three years later with a Bachelor of Arts degree. At Harvard, he was greatly influenced by professors renowned in poetry, philosophy and literary criticism, and the rest of his literary career would be shaped by all three. After graduating, Eliot served as a philosophy assistant at Harvard for a year, and then left for France and the Sorbonne to study philosophy. From 1911 to 1914, Eliot was back at Harvard, where he deepened his knowledge by reading Indian philosophy and studying Sanskrit. He finished his advanced degree at Harvard while in Europe, but due to the onset of World War I, he never went back to Harvard to take the final oral exam for his Ph.D.

He soon married Vivienne Haigh-Wood and took a job in London, England, as a school teacher. Not long after, he became a bank clerk—a position he would hold until 1925. The Poetry It was around this time that T.S. Eliot began a lifelong friendship with American poet Ezra Pound, who immediately recognized Eliot's poetic genius and worked to publish his work. The first poem of this period, and the first of Eliot's important works, was "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," which appeared in Poetry in 1915. His first book of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations, followed in 1917, and the collection established Eliot as a leading poet of his day. While writing poetry and tending to his day job, Eliot was busy writing literary criticism and reviews, and his work in the criticism field would become as respected as his poetry. In 1919, Eliot published Poems, which contained "Gerontion." The poem was a blank-verse interior monologue, and it was unlike anything that had ever been written in the English language.

As if that didn't garner enough attention, in 1922 Eliot saw the publication of "The Waste Land," a colossal and complex examination of postwar disillusionment. At the time he wrote the poem, Eliot's marriage was failing, and he and his wife were both experiencing "nervous disorders." "The Waste Land" almost immediately developed a cult-like following from all literary corners, and it is often considered the most influential poetic work of the 20th century. The same year "The Waste Land" was published, Eliot founded what would become an influential literary journal called Criterion. The poet also edited the journal throughout the span of its publication (1922-1939). Two years later, Eliot left his bank post to join the publishing house Faber & Faber, where he would remain for the rest of his career, shepherding the writing of many young poets. (He officially became a British citizen in 1927.) Whatever else was afoot, Eliot continued to write, and his major later poems include "Ash Wednesday" (1930) and "Four Quartets" (1943).

During this period he also wrote The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933), After Strange Gods (1934) and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1940). For his vast influence—in poetry, criticism and drama—T.S. Eliot received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us ! Citation Information T S Eliot,1948 Nobel Prize Winner in Literature,The Waste Land Author Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. -- T S Eliot Nobel Prize in Literature-1948 Born: 26/09/1888 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA Died: 04/01/1965 in London, England of emphysema which is a type of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Citizen: By birth American, became a naturalized British Citizen in 1914 Language: English Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in a middle class family and was last of the six surviving children of his parents.

His father was a well to do businessman and had interest in Poetry. The senior Eliot particularly admired Ralph Waldo Emerson. T S Eliot's mother used to occasionally write poems. During school days, Eliot had great passion for reading poems and stories. Due to sickness, he could not participate in outdoor activities like other children of his age and in the forced isolation, his love for literature grew. Eliot after completing his BA and MA degree in Harvard, went to Sorbonne, France and did further studies for a year. During the period, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock was penned. In 1911, he returned back to Harvard to pursue course in Philosophy and did his Doctorate. Having spent nearly 3 years in Harvard again, he came to England in 1914. It was in England, that he first met Ezra Pound. For some time, he worked as a clerk in Lloyd's Bank. Here, he started writing The Waste Land. In 1921, Eliot finished the script and showed it to Ezra Pound. Ezra Pound was instrumental in promoting Eliot. In 1922, The Waste Land was published.

Subsequently, Eliot had several books published. But The Waste Land still stands out in content and sharpness of tone. Landmarks: was a heavy smoker. suffered from tachycardia /bronchitis. produced a small amount of poetry looking to his stature. Eliot wrote most of his poems when he was only 22. Valeri Fletcher, whom Eliot married in 1957, had presented Royal Society of Literature, London, a fountain pen used by Eliot( which was given to Eliot as a school boy by his mother) and the same was formally inducted into the society by noted writer James Wood on 18/03/2013 in a glittering ceremony. Wood flew from USA for the purpose.

Notable Works: Gerontion (1920) , The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), Four Quartets (1945), The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock (), The Rock:A Pageant Play(1934)Murder in the Cathedral(1935) Order T S Eliot's Books below Famous People from Missouri Famous People from Missouri History | Symbols | Interesting Facts | Famous People William Robert "Bob" Allison (1934 - 1995) A Major League Baseball outfielder who played in the American League for the Washington Senators and Minnesota Twins from 1958 to 1970. Born in Raytown, MO (1239) Maya Angelou (1928 - 2014) Born Marguerite Annie Johnson. An American author, poet, dancer, actress, and singer. Author of 36 books, including I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She was awarded over 50 honorary doctorate degrees.

Born in Saint Louis, MO (37) Edward Asner (1929 - ) An American film, television and voice actor and former President of the Screen Actors Guild. Primarily known for his role as Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series, Lou Grant. He also provided the voice of Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's animated film, Up. Born in Kansas City, MO (1368) Scott Bakula (1954 - ) An American actor known for his role as Sam Beckett in the television series Quantum Leap and the role of Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek: Enterprise. Born in St. Louis, MO (315) Yogi Berra (1925 - ) Born Lawrence Peter Berra. An American former Major League Baseball catcher, manager, and coach. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest catchers in baseball history. Named the Most Valuable Player of the American League three times. Born in St. Louis, MO (316) Chuck Berry (1926 - ) Born Charles Edward Anderson Berry. An American guitarist, singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. Some of his songs include "Johnny B.

Goode," "Sweet Little Sixteen," and "Nadine." Born in Saint Louis, MO (317) Susan Elizabeth Blow (1843 - 1916) Teacher and founder of the nation's first public kindergarten in the United States. She is known as the "Mother of Kindergarten." Born in Carondelet, MO (318) Omar N. Bradley (1893 - 1981) A United States Army field commander during World War II that commanded the largest body of American soldiers ever to serve under a U.S. field commander. He was the last of only nine people to hold the rank of five-star General. Born in Clark, MO (327) Edgar Buchanan (1903 - 1979) An American actor with a long career in both film and television, Best known as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s.

Born in Humansville, MO (893) Dale Carnegie (1888 - 1955) An American writer and lecturer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking and interpersonal skills. He is the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People. Born in Maryville, MO (776) George Washington Carver (1864 - 1943) An American botanist and inventor. He promoted growing alternative crops to cotton such as peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes. He developed about 100 products made from peanuts. Born in Diamond Grove, MO (13) T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965) Born Thomas Stearns Eliot. An essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Born in St. Louis, MO (320) Jean Harlow (1911 - 1937) Born Harlean Harlow Carpenter. An American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s.

Known as the "Platinum Blonde" and the "Blonde Bombshell." Born in Kansas City, MO (801) Jesse James (1847 - 1882) An American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, and train robber. He became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death. He was killed by one of his own gang. Born in Kearney, MO (324) Donnie Wayne "Don" Johnson (1949 - ) An American actor, producer, director, singer, and songwriter. Best known for his role of Sonny Crockett in the 1980s TV series, Miami Vice and as the lead role in the 1990s series Nash Bridges. Born in Flat Creek, MO (1381) Jack St. Clair Kilby (1923 - 2005) An American electrical engineer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 2000 for his invention of the integrated circuit in 1958. He is also the inventor of the handheld calculator and thermal printer.

Born in Jefferson City, MO (1265) William Lear (1902 - 1978) An American inventor and businessman. Best known for founding the Lear Jet corporation. He invented the battery eliminator for the B Battery and the 8-track cartridge. Born in Hannibal, MO (188) Rush Limbaugh (1951 - ) An American entertainer, radio talk show host, writer and conservative political commentator. His talk show, The Rush Limbaugh Show, is the highest rated talk radio program in the United States. Born in Cape Girardeau, MO (325) James Cash Penney (1875 - 1971) An American businessman and entrepreneur who founded the J.C. Penney stores in 1902. Born in Hamilton, MO (322) Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876 - 1977) An American politician and 14th Governor of Wyoming. She was the first female governor of a U.S. State. She was the director of the United States Mint from 1933 to 1953.

Born in St, Joseph, MO (671) Charles Marion Russell (1864 - 1926) Also known as C.M. Russell. An Artist of the Old American West. He created more than 2000 paintings of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes of the Western U.S. and Canada. He was also a storyteller and author. Born in Oak Hill, MO (329) Harry S. Truman (1884 - 1972) The 33rd President of the United States from 1945 to 1953. He was Vice President for only 82 days before becoming President of the United States in April 1945 when President Roosevelt died. Born in Lamar, MO (323) Kathleen Turner (1954 - ) Born Mary Kathleen Turner. An American film and stage actress and director. Some of her films include Romancing the Stone, Prizzi's Honor, The Accidental Tourist, and Peggy Sue Got Married. Born in Springfield, MO (321) Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

An American author and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Born in Florida, MO (319) Roy Wilkins (1901 - 1981) Prominent civil rights activist in the United States form the 1930s to the 1970s. He was a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Born in St. Louis, MO (326) Reviews Because we have gone on trying; We, content at last If our temporal reversion nourish (Not too far from the yew-tree) The life of significant soil Not only did Eliot shift his philosophic outlook, but his poetic accents also became almost conversational, verging on the informal. Lacked Flamboyance In his later years he had an office in London in the publishing house of Faber & Faber, of which he was a director. There he carried on his business, writing letters and articles, somewhat like the clerkish type he resembled. In appearance he was then, as he was in early life, a most unlikely figure for a poet.

He lacked flamboyance or oddity in dress or manner, and there was nothing of the romantic about him. He carried no auras, cast no arresting eye and wore his heart, as nearly as he could be observed, in its proper anatomical place. His habits of work were equally "unpoetic," for he eschewed bars and cafes for the pleasant and bourgeois comforts of an office with padded chairs and a well-lighted desk. Talking of his work habits, he once said: "A great deal of my new play, 'The Elder Statesman,' was produced in pencil and paper, very roughly. Then I typed it myself first before my wife got to work on it. In typing myself I make alterations, very considerable ones. But whether I write or type, composition of any length, a play for example, means for me regular hours, say 10 to 1. I found that three hours a day is about all I can do of actual composing. I could do the polish perhaps later." Eliot's dress was a model of the London man of business. He wore a bowler and often carried a tightly rolled umbrella.

His accent which started out as pure American Middle West did undergo changes, becoming over the years quite British U. The U was complete and unfeigned. "I am," he said stoutly, "an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics." Even so, his ascetic austerity drew the line at gin rummy, which he delighted to play of an evening. He also kept a signed photograph of Groucho Marx, cigar protuberant, in his study at home. These touches lend credence to Eliot's attempts in later years to soften some aspects of his credo. His religious beliefs, he asserted, remained unchanged and he was still in favor of monarchy in all countries having a monarch, but the term classicism was no longer so important to him. The poet was born on Sept. 26, 1888, into a family of some privilege that had a good background in the intellectual, religious and business life of New England. After a year at Milton (Mass.) Academy, he entered Harvard in 1906 in the class that included Water Lippmann, Heywood Broun, John Reed and Stuart Chase.

He completed his undergraduate work in three years and took a Master of Arts degree in his fourth. Tea With Students Although he never took his doctorate, he completed the dissertation in 1916. It was titled "Experience and Objects of Knowledge in the Philosophy of F.H. Bradley." This thinker's monist view of personality greatly influenced Eliot's poetic sensibility, reinforcing his themes of human isolation in guilt. His Harvard classmates recall that he dressed with the studied carelessness of a British gentleman, smoked a pipe and liked to be left alone. This aspect of Eliot was hardly altered when he returned to Harvard in the nineteen-thirties for a half-year as a sort of poet in residence. In that sojourn he lived in an undergraduate house near the Charles River and entertained students at least once a week at teas. The tea was always brewed and he poured with great delicacy, his long and tabescent fingers clasping the handle of the silver teapot. The quality of his tea, the excellence of the college-provided petit fours and the rippling flow of his conversation drew overflow crowds of students who sat on chairs, on the floor and on windowsills.

At these functions, Eliot was shy and patient with the halting undergraduates, and he must have suffered many fools, but such was his courtesy that he never showed it openly. He just sat and talked, reclining on a high-backed cloth chair, puffing and relighting his pipe, crossing and uncrossing his tweed-covered legs. Eliot was an omnivorous and retentive reader. He consumed philosophy, languages and letters and this lent his poetry an erudition and scholarship unmatched in this century. Indeed, he carried scholrship so far as to footnote "The Waste Land" as though it were a thesis for a doctorate. He was also able, because of his extensive reading, to converse (and hold reasoned views) on a range of subjects from Shakespeare to Karl Marx. His views and his expression of them were usually pungent. "No one can go very far in the discerning enjoyment of poetry," he once remarked, "who is incapable of enjoying any poetry other than that of his own time and place.

It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us to escape--not from our own time, for we are bound by that--but from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our own time." He had a strong dislike for most teaching of poetry, and he once recalled that he had been turned against Shakespeare in his youth by didactical instructors. "I took a dislike to 'Julius Caesar' which lasted, I am sorry to say, until I saw the film of Marlon Brando and John Gielgud, and a dislike to 'The Merchant of Venice' which persists to this day.

"It may be that a few plays and poems must be sacrificed [in school] in order that we learn that English literature exists and that an ordinary acquaintance with it is desirable." Eliot believed, moreover, that "unless a teacher is a person who reads poetry for enjoyment he or she cannot stimulate pupils to enjoy it." Pursuing this theme, he once described how teachers of literature should go about it: "My Ideal Teacher will teach the prescribed classics of literature as history, as part of history which every educated person should know something about, whether he likes it or not; and then should lead some of the pupils to enjoyment, and the rest at least to the point of recognizing that there are other persons who do enjoy it. And he will introduce the pupils to contemporary poetry by exciting enjoyment; enjoyment first and understanding second." Eliot, however, was not one to minimize the difficulties of understanding poetic complexities or achieving empathy with its mood and feeling.

"The reader of a poem," he admonished, "should take at least as much trouble as a barrister reading a decision on a complicated case." Taught in London In 1915 Eliot became a teacher in the Highgate School in London, and the next year went to work in Lloyds Bank, Ltd. Hints of this commercial experience, of which he rarely complained, although the work must have been tedious, peep unexpectedly out of his poetry. For instance, "A Cooking Egg" contains these lines: ...We two shall lie together, lapt In five percent Exchequer Bond Eliot's association with the "little" magazines--those voices of protest against the Establishment--began when he was assistant editor of Egoist from 1917 to 1919. He established The Criterion, a literary publication that never had a circulation exceeding 900. Later he was a working editor for Faber & Faber. The first poem that started Eliot's reputation was "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in 1917. In it he assumed the pose of a fastidious, world-weary, young-old man, aging into ironic wit.

The poem is full of exquisitely precise surrealist images and rhythms, but it also has some everyday metaphors. Part of it goes: I grow old...I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? Shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach... Eliot's strictures on applying concentrated efforts to the understanding of poetry could well apply to his next major poem, "The Waste Land." Heavily influenced by Ezra Pound (it was in fact dedicated to that other poet of obscurity), "The Waste Land" was an expression of gigantic frustration and despair. But it made his reputation, although its author conceded in later years that he wrote it "simply to relieve my own feelings." The poem, a series of somewhat blurred visions, centers on an imaginary waste region, the home of the Fisher King, a little-known figure in mythology, who is sexually impotent.

Writing on "The Waste Land," Helen Gardner, an authority on Eliot's writings, noted: "The sense of boredom and horror behind both the beauty and ugliness is expressed by juxtaposition of the beautiful and the ugly." In another reference, Miss Gardner wrote of Eliot's "union of the common and the formal, the colloquial and the remote, the precise and the suggestive." After "The Waste Land," Eliot's development was tortured and hesitant, but was clearly marked. His interest in the spiritual development of man rather than in his spiritual inadequacies grew after his early period, when he poked more or less good-natured fun at the church in such works as "The Hippopotamus." He sees the haloed hippo ascending into heaven: Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean And him shall heavenly arms unfold. Among the saints he shall be seen Performing on a harp of gold. He shall be washed as white as snow, By all the martyr'd virgins kist, While the True Church remains below Wrapt in the old miasmal mist. In one of his poetry readings at Columbia University, Eliot recited "The Hippopotamus," which had been published in 1914.

He said: "It doesn't seem shocking to anybody now, I think, as it did all those years ago." He discussed his comparison between the hippopotamus and the church: "The True Church need never stir To gather its dividends. He recalled "A good many years after I had written those lines I became a church warden and we were wondering how to keep the church going on the collections. So one lives and learns. Eliot was regarded as an important literary critic as well as a poet. Much of his criticism was published in literary reviews or delivered from the lecture platform, without subsequently appearing in book form. His first book, "The Sacred Wood," was published in 1920. This book and much of Eliot's subsequent criticism introduced certain types of writing to the intelligent reading public with accompanying evaluation that heightened interest in important writers who were not so well known. It is possible that Eliot is most widely known through his drama "Murder in the Cathedral," which was often produced in this country and which was made into a motion picture. It is a grim, sardonic account of the murder of Thomas � Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170.

An opera, "Assassinio Nella Cattedrale," written by Ildebrando Pizzetti, was based on the Eliot drama and enjoyed a critical success. Two of Eliot's plays enjoyed critical success in London and New York. "The Cocktail Party," published in 1954, was a story of deeply religious experience told against a background of highly literate and amusing British people. "The Confidential Clerk" told of bastardy and general unhappiness. In his lighter moments (and there were many) Eliot was an unabashed aelurophile. He kept cats at home, bestowing upon them such names as Man in White Spats; he also wrote a book of poems called "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" and in his dry, cadenced voice he read the verses on the platforms and for recordings. These lines from "The Naming of Cats" illustrate Eliot's profound insight into the narcissistic world of the feline: But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular. A name that is peculiar, and more dignified, Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular. Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?

Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum, Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo or Coricopat. Such as Bambalurina, or else Jellyorum-- Names that never belong to more than one cat. But above and beyond there's still one name left over. And that is the name you will never guess; The name that no human research can discover-- But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in rapy contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name; His ineffable effable Effeineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name. Those critical of Eliot's writing accused him of obscurity for its own sake. They found his verses full of coy and precious little mannerisms. They accused him of loading down his writing with obscure code references that could not possibly be known except to a few intimate friends such as Pound. Unless you knew that Eliot called Pound "Mop" and that Pound called Eliot "Possum" you couldn't possibly know what they were getting at, these critics asserted.

In politics, Eliot liked to say that he was a "monarchist," although most of his friends suspected that he saw the monarchial principle as a symbol rather than as a political instrument. The doctrines of the Anglo-Catholiscism were probably the greatest influence in later life and writings. He was a vestryman at a fashionable London church. In 1927, Eliot became the first important American man of letters since Henry James to become a British subject. He said at the time: "Here I am, making a living, enjoying my friends here. I don't want to feel like being a squatter. I might as well take full responsibility." In 1949, King George VI conferred the Order of Merit on the poet. This is one of Britain's highest awards. No more than 24 persons may hold it at one time. Lectured at Harvard Eliot returned to his native country many times and in 1948 resided in Princeton, where he worked at the Institute for Advance Study.

In 1950, he gave the first Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture at Harvard on "Poetry and Drama." He lectured frequently and gave readings of his poems in New York and throughout the country. Eliot was a rather stooped man of a little over 6 feet who had a somewhat prim appearance which mingled with a slight air of anxiety common to persons who are shy. In London, Eliot lived in a comfortable, modern apartment in Chelsea overlooking the Thames. In 1915, he married Miss Vivienne Haigh-Wood, who died in 1947. They had no children. In January, 1957, Eliot married Miss Valerie Fletcher, his private secretary. He was then 68 years old and his bride about 30. A new play by Eliot, "The Elder Statesman," was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1958 and ran briefly in London, where it was not received with any particular enthusiasm. It was in the spirit of his previous plays, "The Cocktail Party" and "The Confidential Clerk," and dealt with the tragic lack of communication between a British father and his son.

In that year Eliot was 70 and in an interview said: "I am just beginning to grow up, to get maturity. In the last few years everything I'd done up to 60 or so has seemed very childish." In connection with Eliot's 70th birthday, a book was published entitled "T.S. Eliot: A Symposium for His 70th Birthday." It contained anecdotes about the poet, comment on his writings and other matter concerning Eliot written by 50 persons, most of whom knew him. His Verse Reflected Spiritual Despair After First War It is very likely that when the literary history of our time comes to be written, it will be characterized as the Age of Eliot, just as we speak now of the Age of Pope or Tennyson. For no man in the period between the two World Wars so dominated his time as critic and creator as did T.S. Eliot. And no man did more to help shape the standards by which he was judged. For this expatriate American caught and expressed in his verse the sense of a doomed world, of fragmentation, of a wasteland of the spirit that moved the generation after the war.

It was a generation that felt tricked by the politicians, felt that the enormous bloodletting of World War I had been a fraud and saw in the disintegrating Europe of their time the symbol of their own lives. Their mood of spiritual despair was exquisitely rendered in Eliot's poetry. It is said that he resented being spoken of as the poet of a wasteland, and yet the dry tone, the arid physical and spiritual landscape of his early poetry, the bleakness that stared out of his verse, whether he wished it or not, summed up for a generation their own sense of defeat, their sense of barrenness. They echoed his words, "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker." By transplanting himself from the America where he was born and nurtured to England he gave physical proof of the alienation and exile that were a hallmark of the sensibilities of the nineteen-twenties. The tone of fastidious weariness that characterized "Prufrock," was welcomed eagerly by the young on both sides of the Atlantic. In this poem, where high purpose has been dissolved into the niceties of social behavior, they found an excuse if not an answer to their lack of purpose and direction.

In the character of Sweeney who inhabits his poems, Eliot expressed the contrast between the mindless and brutalizing force of the world and the permanent values that are destroyed by it. But it was "The Waste Land," whose very form seemed to reflect the title, that gave a heading to the time. The poem, too, by its borrowings from different literatures and cultures, by offering complexities and helping with solutions, also gave a further turn to the critical taste that delighted in explication and esoteric burrowings, which felt that explanation almost came before enjoyment. With "Ash Wednesday," Eliot turned to the support and succor of faith, and in "Four Quartets" he worked out with a calm music a statement of the strength of abiding belief. There was, too, a mordant and satiric side to the poet as in "Conversation Galante" and "Cousin Nancy" and a playful one, best found in "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats." In his critical essays Eliot wrote with a transparency of style and certainly of tone that were enormously persuasive.

By his disapproval of the overweighted character of Milton's lines, he turned a generation of scholars to the complexities and involved conceits of the metaphysicals and those who derived from them. Though perhaps not a formal member of the New Critics, he gave them encouragement and support by his own poetic practice and by the choice of subjects and treatment in his own work. By borrowings and paraphrases he made new readers aware of the writings of the French symbolist poets. More than all this, however, by asserting that "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality" and by demanding that the poet must search for the object, situation or event that objectively expresses the emotion, Eliot supplied critical tools to both maker and critic alike. In his verse plays, Eliot hoped to restore poetic drama to a place it once occupied, though whether there is enough life in his characters and whether their moral dilemmas will carry over to another age needs best be left to time. Only "Murder in the Cathedral" seems to have the necessary staying power, at least in book form, if not on the stage.

Although Eliot's influence began to wane in the last decade of his life, we are still too close to the light he shed to take his measure accurately. That his poems will have a permanent place in that tradition he so cherished is certain. And whatever judgment is made of his criticism, no consideration of 20th-century literature in English will be able to bypass him. If we judge a man by the vacancy that his absence from his time would have caused, T.S. Eliot was a giant. Poets and critics, many of them friends of T.S. Eliot for a number of years, paid tribute to him yesterday. Following are some statements on his death. ROBERT LOWELL, poet and author of the play "The Old Glory:" "He was a dear personal friend. Our American literature has had no greater poet or critic." ALLEN TATE, poet, critic and professor of English at the University of Minnesota: "I knew him for 36 years. Mr.

Eliot was the greatest poet in English of the 20th century and he had the same relation to this age as Samuel Johnson had to the 18th century." CONRAD AIKEN, poet, now in Savannah, Ga: "I was one of his oldest friends since 1908. We put out the Harvard Advocate together. There is no question about it; he was one of the great poets of our time. I loved him very much as a man. He was an extraordinary poet and also wrote one of the outstanding plays, 'Murder in the Cathedral.'" LOUIS UNTERMEYER, poet: "Eliot made a revolution in the language of modern poetry, and our whole attitude toward what we call modern poetry. He has influenced every young poet whether he knows it. He changed the vocabulary of poetry, which in the past was on the level of poetic diction. He brought into writing what was beautiful and what was banal. He contrasted the ugly, the commonplace and vulgar, with what was beautiful. He showed the horror, the boredom and the glory of life. His influence will last at least for another century." HORACE GREGORY, poet: "This is a very great loss indeed.

As a man he was very generous and kind to younger poets. He never gave indiscriminate praise. I'm very much upset about this." ROBERT PENN WARREN, poet, critic: "He is the key figure of our century in America and England, the most powerful single influence. This is his age. He gave us the sense of the culture crisis of the Western world, when we were suddenly thrown on our own in a different way than ever before. This awareness of the state of the individual in the face of a cultural crisis was his greatness." JOHN CROWE RANSOM, poet, critic and teacher: "I started out years ago with a criticism that was a little antagonistic to his 'Wasteland.' I soon got over that. He had a wonderful power for the dramatic." T. S. Eliot, Writer • Biography & Facts T. S. Eliot Writer Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) better known as T. S. Eliot was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and "one of the twentieth century's major poets." He was born in St.

Louis, Missouri to an old Yankee family. He emigrated to England in 1914 (at age 25), settling, working and marrying there. He was eventually naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39, renouncing his American citizenship.Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry." Poetry: T. S. Eliot This useful site contains a timeline of Eliot's life, the texts of many of his most noteworthy poems and essays, and an extensive list of links regarding Eliot and his works.

BIOGRAPHY Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His father was president of the Hydraulic Press Brick Company, his mother a teacher, social worker, and writer. Educated in private academies, Eliot earned two philosophy degrees at Harvard (B.A., 1909; M.A., 1910). After graduate study in Paris and England, he worked for eight years as a clerk in Lloyd's Bank in London, and became a naturalized British citizen in 1927. He was editor, then director of Faber & Gwyer Publishers (later Faber & Faber) from 1925 to 1965, and spent time in the United States as a visiting lecturer and scholar. Admirers and detractors agree that Eliot was the most imposing and influential poet writing between the world wars. His poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917) and his collection, The Waste Land (1922) are among his earliest and most famous.

Acknowledging his dependence on a preexisting cultural tradition, Eliot explained: "The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be altered." Eliot also wrote plays, including Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1950). The long-running Broadway musical Cats is based on his 1939 verse collection, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948. Copyright � 1998, 1999, Bedford/St. Martin's Defining English Literature: British Nobel Prize Winners Defining English Literature: British Nobel Prize Winners Thomas Storey For centuries, English literature has occupied a disproportionately large place on the global stage, with iconic figures such as William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens endowing the English literary tradition with a lustre that it still retains. The British winners of the Nobel Prize for literature embody this, although they may offer surprises even for those well versed in the literary output of the United Kingdom .

The diverse list of winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature from the United Kingdom reveal the way in which the contours of English literature have shifted over the course of the 20th century and how it has become more inclusive and more varied. The list includes several writers who were born elsewhere but came to call England their home, and came to have a profound impact on English literature, as well as writers working in the fields of history, philosophy and drama along with poetry and fiction. What these writers have in common is that they all put forward their own definition of English literature, and by doing so demarcated their own idea of England. Rudyard Kipling (1864-1936) Kipling, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907, was the first winner of the prize from the British Isles and was also the first English language writer to win. For many people, Kipling has become emblematic of a type of late-Victorian Englishness: something which is most apparent in his all-consuming zeal for the British Empire. Indeed Kipling was born in Bombay, then a major centre of the British Raj, and spent much of his life writing about the Empire.

Works such as Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), The White Man’s Burden (1899) and If (1910) focused on Imperial exploits and the heroism of British forces in facing down indigenous foes. In subsequent decades he was dismissed as a propagandist for British Imperialism who cared little for the rights of the various peoples that populated the Empire, although the literary value of Kipling’s work has rarely been questioned. He is perhaps most fondly remembered for his children’s stories, such as The Jungle Book , which remains widely read. John Galsworthy (1897-1933) The next winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature from the United Kingdom was John Galsworthy, who won in 1932, a year before his death. In his time he was a highly successful novelist and playwright whose novel The Forsyte Saga and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter , were immensely popular. This series of novels depicted the convoluted lives of an upper class British family who, despite their wealth, are beset by problems.

The family is considered nouveaux riche, having come from a farming background, and the novels are partly an acutely observed satire of the complexities of the British class system. Whilst Galsworthy was immensely popular and was recognised for his literary achievements by the Nobel committee, he was also a divisive figure. The younger generation of modernist writers who came to prominence in the early 20th century dismissed him as an archaic relic of the Victorian era. T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) An American who spent most of his adult life in Britain and who eventually became a naturalised British citizen, T.S. Eliot is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in 20th century literature. Eliot was awarded the prize in 1948, by which time he had become a leading figure in the United Kingdom’s literary establishment and an icon for successive generations of young poets. Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri, but immigrated to Europe in his early 20s, living first in Paris and then in London, where he met Ezra Pound.

Together they would revolutionise 20th century literature, rejecting the staid realism of their predecessors in favour of a modernist stream-of-consciousness style that emphasised the ruptures of individual perspective. Eliot’s most famous works of his early period were The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock , a satire of modern ennui, and The Waste Land , an apocalyptic epic in which Eliot channelled the disillusionment of his generation and the horror of World War One. Eliot’s works, along with other modernist classics such as James Joyce’s Ulysses and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway , changed the trajectory of English literature irrevocably. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) Bertrand Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 for his writings in philosophy, rather than fiction. He was one of most influential philosophers of the early 20th century and through his work he developed a new method of philosophical inquiry which he called ‘analytic philosophy’. This placed more of an emphasis on rigorous argument and clarity, formal logic and linguistic analysis.

Russell’s most famous philosophical works are On Denoting, which he released in 1905,and Principia Mathematica , written with A.N. Whitehead and published from 1910 to 1913. Alongside his philosophical career, Russell was involved in political and social activism and campaigned for pacifism and, in his later life, nuclear disarmament. He released A History of Western Philosophy in 1945, a hugely influential compendium of the course of Western philosophy, which was cited when he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Winston Churchill (1874-1965) A towering figure in British history, the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is world-renowned for his wartime leadership of the United Kingdom. Alongside his political career Churchill was an avid historian and a prolific writer. Despite his official responsibilities as Prime Minister, he published several highly acclaimed works during his lifetime.

These include Marlborough: His Life and Times , a biography of Churchill’s ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples , a four volume history of Britain from Roman times to the early 20th century, and The Second World War , an insider’s account of the British war effort. The latter work was cited when he won the Nobel Prize, although many have suggested that it is compromised by Churchill’s central role in the action. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1953 for, in the words of the Nobel Committee, ‘his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values’. William Golding (1911-1993) Golding was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983, at which time he was considered one of the foremost English writers of the 20th century. He came to prominence in the early 1950s with the publication of his debut novel Lord of the Flies , a harrowing allegorical tale of shipwrecked children that was, at the time, shocking in its bleak depiction of human bestiality.

This novel introduced Golding’s stylistic and thematic obsessions: his tendency to use allegory and his relentless pessimism about the nature of civilisation, which would thread its way throughout his work. Lord of the Flies was not a success initially, but was eventually acclaimed as one of the finest works of the 20th century and a perspicacious insight into post war society. Golding would follow it with several acclaimed works including The Inheritors (1955), The Spire (1964) and Rites of Passage (1980), which won the Man Booker Prize. Golding remains one of the most popular English authors, particularly since Lord of the Flies has become a mainstay of secondary school curricula in the UK and US. Harold Pinter (1930-2008) A dramatist who would come to dominate the world of English theatre over the latter half of the 20th century, Pinter has been credited with reviving British drama.

His works were hailed for their psychological insight and their unsettling qualities, and the Nobel Prize committee commented upon awarding him the prize for literature in 2005, that ‘in his plays [he] uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms’. Pinter’s works also revealed a deep political commitment which he also displayed in other areas of his life; most notably by refusing to do his National Service in the British military in the 1950s, but also by relentless political activism in his later years. He campaigned vigorously for free speech, an end to international conflict and was a fierce critic of the second Iraq war. Some of Pinter’s most prominent works include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964), and Betrayal (1978). Doris Lessing (1919-2013) Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007 and at 88 was the oldest person to ever receive the prize.

Although born in Iran and raised in Zimbabwe, which at the time was the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, she fled Africa to pursue a writing career, leaving behind her two small children. She moved to London, and in 1950 published her first novel, The Grass is Singing . Drawing from her childhood in Africa, this novel was considered a shocking sensation upon its release because of its frank depiction of race relations in the British colony. Its notoriety, however, would be eclipsed by Lessing’s third novel The Golden Notebook , which she released in 1962. This was a thematic breakthrough for Lessing and its depiction of female sexuality and the woman’s movement was profoundly radical for its time. Lessing would release several other highly acclaimed works throughout her career, including Memoirs of a Survivor (1974), The Good Terrorist (1985) and The Sweetest Dream (2001).

Question: Which writer born in St. Louis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948?
Answer: T.S. ELIOT